Liquid–liquid equilibrium of binary and ternary systems composed by palm oil or palm oil fractions with methanol/ethanol and water

• The liquid–liquid equilibria (LLE) of systems which are composed of palm oils, short chain alcohols and water were experimentally determined.
• Two thermodynamic models were used to correlate the experimental solubility data.
• The effect of temperature and inclusion of water on the equilibrium data was investigated.

The liquid–liquid equilibrium (LLE) of systems containing palm oil or palm oil fractions, short chain alcohols (methanol/ethanol) and water were experimentally determined in the temperature range from (293.15 to 333.15) K under atmospheric pressure. It was found that the mutual solubility of palm oil and short chain alcohols increased with the increasing of temperature. The inclusion of water in the solvents decreased the mutual solubility of the systems. Two thermodynamic models (NRTL and UNIFAC) were employed to correlate the experimental liquid–liquid equilibrium data by treating palm oil as a single triacylglycerol with average molar mass. The calculated results showed that the NRTL model can give better correlation results than the UNIFAC model.